Renegotiating First World War Memory: The British and American Legions, 1938-1946

This book explores how the British and American Legions adapted cognitively to the emergence of the Second World War and its veterans in the years 1938 through 1946, using the previous war as a learning experience. It illuminates how differing international, national, and organizational contexts intersected to shape this process and the common factors affecting it in both groups.

Format: Hardback
Length: 268 pages
Publication date: 30 June 2021
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

With the advent of the Second World War, ex-servicemen's organizations based on the First World War found themselves facing an existential crisis. This book explores how two such groups, the British and American Legions, adapted cognitively to the emergence of another world war and its veterans in the years 1938 through 1946. Both Legions renegotiated existing narratives of the First World War and the lessons they derived from those narratives as they responded to the unfolding Second World War in real time. By using the previous war as a learning experience for the new one, certain understandings of that conflict were privileged over others, influencing the meaning of the war for each Legion moving forward. Breaking down the Second World War into its constituent events to trace the evolution of First World War memory through everyday invocations, this unprecedented comparison of the British and American Legions illuminates how differing international, national, and organizational contexts intersected to shape this process and the common factors affecting it in both groups. The book will appeal primarily to researchers of the ex-service movement, First World War memory, and the cultural history of the Second World War.

Weight: 572g
Dimension: 310 x 241 x 23 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780367353865